• ON THIS DAY IN WWF HISTORY (January 11, 1987) – WWF Wrestling Challenge
On this day in 1987, the World Wrestling Federation aired an episode of their weekly TV show ‘WWF Wrestling Challenge’.
It was broadcasted from the Community Center in Tucson, Arizona and featured pre-taped matches, interviews & storyline segments on the road to the ‘WWF WrestleMania III’ PPV.
The card can be found right here:
1. Randy Savage vs. Steve Gatorwolf
2. Tito Santana vs. Jimmy Jack Funk
3. Kamala vs. Jesse Cortez
4. Harley Race vs. Jerry Monti
5. Don Muraco & Cowboy Bob Orton Jr. vs. The Killer Bees
• Reason Behind WWE Telling Security To Take Down The Wedding Officiant On RAW
On this week’s episode of RAW, “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles defeated Akira Tozawa in a singles match.
After Styles left the ring, the wedding officiant for Lana & Bobby Lashley’s wedding segment came running into the ring, but got immediately taken down by security.
WWE cameras didn’t cut away from this scene right away and we got to see him getting taken down (tap here to watch that footage from RAW).
A WWE employee came running to the scene to tell the security to leave him.
The wedding officiant (name: Rick Malone) posted the following about this on Facebook:
“This is what happened tonight at WWE/RAW: I needed to get into the ring in order to consummate the “Bobby Lashley and Lana Wedding” (which was totally disrupted last Monday night in Hartford CT), but security prevented me, so I had no other choice but to dive into the ring headfirst. Security was not pleased! But the married couple was very happy! ❤️”
He also posted the following close-up video of what happened:
According to Reddit user looselipsbackstage (who has correctly broken multiple WWE news stories in the past) noted that this incident was scripted by WWE.
As a matter of fact, this incident was mentioned in the RAW script as following:
“IN-ARENA: An Unidentified Man (The Wedding Official) is attempting to get in the ring when he is confronted by security.”
According to the Wrestling Observer, WWE scripted this incident to gain the attention of viewers and prevent them from changing the channel during the commercial break:
“People figured security screwed up on live TV and thought he was a fan. It was actually all part of the show.
It was a way to get people talking by doing something out of the box with the idea anything can happen on the show and they did it right before a planned commercial break with the idea of hooking people to not switch channels during the break by having people see something they thought they weren’t supposed to see.”
